Three little girls, three different kinds of treasure.

I like to start Fridays out with a happy thought, to set the tone for the coming weekend. Fridays go by a lot quicker and happier if you have fun plans to anticipate!

I spent my morning thinking about early release today – my office closes at 2p.m. – and how I plan to spent the afternoon book shopping; splurging on a few scrapbook supplies for the pages I’m making this weekend, and staring at Christmas decorations that Michaels already has out; and then getting a pedi and my brows down. And because I am the queen of coupons and gift cards, I can do all of that for $35. Knowing one’s the master does tend to make one smile.

Miss Gracie, on the other hand, just finished Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets the other night. **SPOILER ALERT** Seeing Gracie’s jaw unhinge for the longest time when she realized Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort was one of the best reading moments in my entire life. Gracie will never be able to give up reading now just in case there’s a hidden answer. And last night we finished the movie. She has been so cute, speaking in parseltongue to everyone and relieving every stinkin’ miserable prediction she made about the books (my favorite: “Harry can’t die, Mommy – he’s on the covers of the other books!” Smarty pants.), and muttering constantly about what might happen in the next book. (Right now she’s leaning towards “something huge” because as she put it, “The first book he had to play chess and rescue something small. Then he had to rescue Ginny. The third book will probably be Hermione or Ron. Because it keeps getting bigger, Mom.” That kid could already write for television.) So Gracie was all happy this morning, making plans to try to release all the snakes at the zoo next time with her newly learned parseltongue skills.

Bee-girl, meanwhile, casually mentioned as she was chowing down on toast and strawberry jelly that she needed to bring in to school a pair of socks that could get ruined. I lectured her briefly about how she must ask Mom for things she needs for school the night before, not during the mad dash for school. Bee went back to licking the jelly off her fingers and I got her some old white tube socks she refuses to wear because they aren’t “fancy.” Later while I was driving, Bee told me they are going to have a treasure hunt with their socks. They’ll put something in them, and then someone else has to guess what they are. And they were going to do it outside, she revealed with great dramatic flair. “That sounds like so much more fun than doing it inside,” I agreed. “You’ll be able to use things like stones and acorns and rocks…” “NO, Mom,” she interrupted, “it’s a treasure hunt. We’ll find gold and stuff like that.” Oh. My bad.

Two adorable little girls and their rather sassy mama, on the lookout for a fun Friday. Hold on to your hats, everyone – we sound pretty determined.